SpaceDataHighway Reaches Laser Connection Milestone
The SpaceDataHighway – the "world’s first operational optical communication system based on cutting-edge laser technology", has achieved the milestone of 50,000 successful laser connections. During the first five years of routine operations these successful connections have downloaded more than 3.0 Petabytes of data and have a service availability rate of >99.7% in 2021.
The SpaceDataHighway is a public-private partnership between the European Space Agency and Airbus, which owns and operates the system, taking full advantage of the laser communication terminals developed by Tesat-Spacecom in cooperation with the DLR German Space Administration. SpaceDataHighway enables the transfer of data (including imagery, voice and video) from LEO satellites and airborne platforms, by laser communications via the EDRS-A and EDRS-C geostationary satellites, to receiving ground stations across Europe.
Airbus says the technology represents a "game changer" in the speed of space communications, using laser technology to deliver secure data transfer services at a rate of up to 1.8 Gbit/s in near-real time. The system relays data from Low Earth Orbit Earth Observation satellites moving at a speed of in excess of 16,000 mph at an altitude of 435 miles via two geostationary satellites orbiting 22,000 miles above the Earth.
The system’s satellites are designed to lock on to low-orbiting satellites via laser and collect their data as they travel in low Earth orbit scanning the Earth. From its position in geostationary orbit, the SpaceDataHighway acts as a relay, transmitting the large quantities of data acquired by these observation satellites down to Earth in near-real time at a speed of up to 1.8 Gbit/s, instead of storing the data on board until the satellites pass over their own ground station.
The system can download 230GB of data in a typical link session which lasts around 18 mins on average, meaning the SpaceDataHighway is capable to relay up to 40 terabytes of data acquired by observation satellites, aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles and other mobile assets to Earth … the equivalent of streaming more than 400,000 MP3 songs per day.
The establishment of the laser connections is controlled by the SpaceDataHighway’s Mission Operation Center which operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week at an Airbus facility near Munich. Operators receive transmission requests from customers, program the space and ground segment and monitor the performance of communications.
The service is currently used by the European Commission’s Earth Observation Copernicus program. Airbus is serving the connectivity needs of the four Sentinel 1 & 2 satellites and is relaying around 40% of the total data of these satellites via SpaceDataHighway. The service has significantly accelerated the delivery of large volumes of data to Earth monitoring centers. With the successful commissioning of the second satellite EDRS-C, SpaceDataHighway has doubled capacity. Airbus is now expanding the SpaceDataHighway service to more customers and is targeting to at least triple the number of LEO satellites served with the current system by 2030.
Pleiades Neo, Airbus’s most advanced optical Earth Observation constellation with four 30cm resolution satellites will be the next satellites to benefit from SpaceDataHighway’s infrastructure and will further optimise mission reactivity providing Near Real Time data delivery and rapid tasking. From later this year, the system will also relay information from the Columbus module of the International Space Station (ISS) via the Columbus Ka-band (ColKa) service, bringing enormous benefits to both astronauts and also scientists and researchers across Europe by enabling them to progress vital research faster.
Airbus is also developing user terminals to enable new applications. Recently, with the Netherlands’ organisation for applied scientific research TNO, Airbus has launched the UltraAir program to develop a laser communication terminal demonstrator for airborne platforms.
(Image provided with Airbus news release)